The excesses of banks, big business and the super-rich have shattered our economic system. In the final extract from their new book, Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson put forward their principles for a fairer and more cohesive society

We don't manufacture anything any more. Most of the world won't buy our records or watch our films. Only our gift of the gab is keeping Britain's economy ticking over. But how long can the hot air last, ask b>Larry Elliott and Dan Atkinson.

It was an ultra-militant docker of the 1960s who, faced with a well-meaning government scheme to end casual labour on the waterfront, called on his brothers to "fight this diabolical threat of permanent unemployment".